MUSIC

Blues & Jazz were the heartbeat of Harlem Music.

Mamie Smith, Blues

In the 1920s, African-American artists became a driving force for Blues, based on African spirituals and an expression of the working class. Blues performers from circuses and tent shows now became famous.

Ma Rainey, Blues

And Jazz came from the Blues after WWI. This music had previously been considered seedy, associated with prostitution houses and traveling circuses. But now it became popular even among whites, with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway leading the way. A "Negro Vogue" started among whites, with racism shown in their imitation of black jazz musicians with

Cab Calloway, Jazz

blackface. The Cotton Club excluded black audiences. --Encyclopaedia Britannica

Yet Harlem Renaissance Music can be seen as a way that blacks celebrated their heritage, and created a new identity, the New Negro. 

And today, some similarities can be seen with the music of hip hop. Both were a chance for "minorities...to establish a culture of their own and promote the...establishment of a new cultural identity" --The Contemporary Culture Project, Washington & Lee Univ.

Both music forms push for civil rights, self-expression, and are performed in dance and art (graffiti for Hip Hop). But Hip Hop is "on the streets," rebellious, and Jazz and Blues are not. They were performed in the Apollo Theater.


Dance was also a form of self-expression shown in jazz music at the time.Physical, expressing
joy, anger, lust, frustration

It involved "rent parties," where people paid for admission to someone's cleared-out apartments to dance and eat food. The goal was to raise money for rent, which was more for blacks than whites. --Contemporary Culture Project, Washington and Lee Univ.


PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL

Harlem Renaissance Musicians, from John Carroll Univ. website